Meaning of Axioms of communication

They are known by axioms of communication to the five conditions of human communication proposed by Paul Watzlawick .Watzlawick was a theorist who dabbled in the theory of communication and radical constructivism.Communication is part of his theory of human communication.

This author noted the existence of five axioms in human communication, these axioms are obvious conditions.Watzlawick states that these axiomatic conditions are present always in every communicative act .The author mentions that these are de facto circumstances within human communication.

We already mentioned that they are the axioms, where they come from and what they mean, subtract detail what each one implies :

• The first axiom indicates the impossibility of not communicating .This axiom highlights the fact that all behavior is a type of communication.


• The second axiom refers to the levels of content and relationship in a communication .This axiom indicates how the relationship classifies the content of the communication, which implies a meta-communication.In a communicative act Not only what is said means something, but also the form, the relationship between the participants, the context, the intention, etc.

The axioms of communication are present conditions in all types of communication.

• The third axiom refers to the condition of the relationship between the participants .Here comes into play the way they perceive and interpret the relationship between them.They may consider that the relationship is based on causes and effects, but it is rather a continuous cyclic process.


• As for the fourth axiom, the two modes of communication, digital and analogical, are addressed .This does not refer to technology but to communicative content: digital is what is said while analogical implies all nonverbal communication.

• The fifth axiom refers to the form of communicational exchanges, which can be symmetric or complementary .This axiom is based on the relationship of the participants, if their exchanges are egalitarian and reciprocal or if they are additive and complementary.The complementary relationship implies a certain hierarchy or authority, the symmetric relationship is horizontal, between pairs.

On the axioms of communication

Already developed the five axioms proposed by Watzlawick we want to delve a little deeper into the author's theory. These communicational assumptions are found in the work The pragmatics of human communication published in 1967 .This book is fundamental within the theory of communication and I count on the collaborations of Janet Beavin-Bavelas and Don Jackson.

We can summarize the five axioms as follows: The first axiom says that it is impossible not to communicate.The second axiom talks about the content and the relationship in the communication.The third speaks on the punctuation that defines communication.The fourth exposes the digital or analogical modality of communicating.And the fifth axiom indicates symmetry or complementarity in the communicative act.

Watzlawick referred to communication failure when communication is lacking and a number of circumstances occur.Basically, communication failure occurs when axioms are not respected .